6

Teaching and personal relationships

Introduction

It was argued in Ch. 2 that , though the progressive movement in education

has often suffered from indeterminacy with regard to aims and content , it
has certainly exhibited moral and psychological enlightenment with regard
to menthod. The epithet ‘childcentred’ indicates the general their pupils just
as potential recipients of knowledge and skill; they should not be like a
parade ground in which generation after generation of reluctant recruits are
licked into shape; rather it should be permeated by a happy atmosphere
which is the by-product of good personal relationships. At the university
level , too, the teacher should not be compeletely wrapped up in his own
research, interesting himseft only in those students who can help him with it.
He should emerge from his ivory tower and have more times for students as
persons. Education is not just a matter of the meeting of minds; it is a
process of per-sonal encuonter.
Such exhortations seem peculiarly at the present time when educational
institutions are constantly expanding and when economic pressures are
beginning no dictate an increase in the staff-student ratio. Mammoth-sized
classes are increasingly assembled before which the professor, like a perfom
on television, has to display his wares in as arresting a manner as possible.
This makes discussion of his views which his purpils and personal contact
which them very diffcult to contrive. Schools, too, become so large that it is
impossible for teacher to get to know his purpils;so guidance officers or
counselors are introduced to provide some kind of personal attention in a
thoroughly depersonalized situation.The teacher becomes just a lecturer in a
subject and is perceived by the purpils as being purely a purveyor of
knowledge which is necessary for mounting the ladder of the occupational
structure.
For educational institutions to be successful some kind of intrinsic
motivation is essential , an indentification on the part of the pupils with the
educational purposes of such institutions. But their size and
depersonalization militates against this. Instead of teachers providing a link
between the generations , and thus facilitating the transmission of these
purposes, they tend to be regarded as part of an impersonal order from which
the pupiks remain alienated, huddled together , perhaps, in, their own peer-
group culture.
In this type of situation what is to be made of the suggestion that teachers
should try to develop personal relationships with pupils? Is it compatible
with their role as teachers concerned with the development of knowledge
and understanding? And how can a teacher develop personal relationships
with a class of over forty? Is a personal relationship possible with a child of
ten? Is not such talk impractical sentimentality? These are reasonable
questions , but no answer can be given to them until there is more clarity
about what we mean by ‘personal relationships’ and how they are distinct
from or related to the role relationship between teacher and pupil. Let us,
therefore, approach these problems by trying to distinguish various relations
in which the teacher stands to pupils . The hope is that we shall eventually
be able to isolate what is meant by ‘personal relationships’. In this process of
analysis the reader may sense at times some affront to his unreflective
assumptions about personal relationships. He may,indeed ,say at the end
‘But that’s not what I mean by “personal relationships’’ .’ But the term is a
very vague one in ordinary use and, provided that the analysis sharpens up
distinctions , which are relevant for understanding and decision-making,such
affronts must be risked, For , as we have stressed before , the purpose of
conceptual analysis is not to reveal some essence which ordinary language
reflects, but to get clearer about how things are and about what is to be
done .
Teaching and respect for persons

In any institution people occupy positions which require them to act in

various ways which are demanded by their role. A teacher is expected to
treat a pupil in a certain way as a learner, just as a bus-conductor is expected
to treat an individual in a certain way as a passenger. In other words ,
whatever else a teacher is expected to do, at least he is expected to teach.

Requirements implicit in teaching

Teaching , as an activity , is unintelligible unless somebody is or is thought

of as a learner. The view which a teacher has of his pupils as learners
should , therefore, provide a thread of unity which runs through a whole
range of his be looked on with much positive favour. The activities just
commented on have been taken to be fully intentional and deliberate on the
part of the teacher. Yet should the ends that characterize them be achieved
without any such intentions, from an educational point of view they must
still be rejected. For this reason alone, a thorough empirical investigation of
the consequences of teaching activities needs to be undertaken, that goes
beyond those consequences intended by the teachers. Only in this way can
we hope to control miseducation that results from the very best of
educational intentions.
The ‘value’ criterion of education, being more general than the
‘knowledge’ criterion, has more limited, if not less important, significance.
The complex interconnection between means and ends, that has been
commented on more than once, implies that the processes of education must
not be assessed in simple utilitarian terms. if the content and methods of
education are themselves being mastered as subsidiary objectives, they
should, like the more immediate objectives, be judged on educational
grounds. Learning to learn and learning by enquiry have indeed become
prominent explicit curriculum objectives of late, a change giving added point
to the importance of what are only too often regarded as merely the
instrument aspects of education. Educational activities must there for
themselves be assessed in educational terms, not simply in those of
utilitarian efficiency as serving other ends, In practice such assessment is
difficult, partly because of our ignorance of the empirical facts about
different teaching and learning activities. It is made yet more difficult
owning to our lack of agreement on those things we do indeed consider
educationally valuable. Once more our elucidation has brought us up against
the crucial place of value judgments in education, Judgments which clearly
must govern not only the ends or aims of education but the processes of
teaching and learning as well. At present our educational values do little to
rule out many possible forms of teaching and learning. Those that are
excluded are usually rejected on the yet winder grounds of general moral
unacceptability.
We conclude, then, that educational processes are those processes of
learning, which may be stimulated by teaching, out of which desirable states
of mind, involving knowledge and understanding, develop. There are many
such processes learning by experience, from example, from personal
instruction, from teaching machines, and so on. In recent times the
discussion of these processes has tended to polarize into those favouring a
‘traditional’ teacher-centred approach and those favouring a ‘progressive’
pupil-centred approach. It is our belief that both these ‘models’ are one-
sided. A fuller analysis that the processes of education are more complex
than either suggests, and that a doctrinaire in-sistence on any limited range
of activities can only be unprofitably resteictive.